I may have been the only one who didn't know this but Broadway shows are not always the best of the best. The idea that I had when I arrived here was that Broadway was the holy grail of stage acting and for that reason every show was worth the $60 ticket and your socks would be knocked off every time.
I’m sorry to burst any bubbles but that is just not the case.
I have seen six or seven shows on Broadway already and three Off-Broadway and in many of these cases I am very happy that I did not pay for the ticket.
The original theory was blown very quickly because the first show that I saw on my first full day in the city was Bye Bye Birdie. This show was star cast with John Stamos and a few other semi famous people. Obviously my hopes were high because this was my first show on Broadway but it took less than 15 minutes to realize that John was not in this show because he was the best at the part or because he could sing, he was there to sell tickets. His acting performance was rather boring and his singing, even worse. Even after saying that you can look at the $80 face value of my ticket and the nearly sold-out house and see that he was doing his job. The theatre was beautiful and there was not a bad seat there and we would know because these $80 tickets got us seats in the very last row of the balcony.
Before you go thinking this is all about bashing Broadway just hold on a second because this first show was motivational for me. Motivational in the sense that when I get in the producers seat I will make it my job to provide that best possible show for the audience. I realize that just because it is a great show though it doesn’t mean that it will make money. The great thing is that there are stars out there that can act and sing and deserve to be on Broadway. The job of the producer is to decide how to provide the greatest show possible and to get as many people to see it as they can.
I have seen two other star cast shows and they have been two of the top shows in my experience. The first was Chicago with Ashley Simpson playing the lead role. Don’t judge me for seeing this or for paying the crazy prices for fifth row seats on her last day in the role. Ashley actually made the show for me. She was energetic and performed her role nearly perfect with great singing, dancing and acting. Granted Chicago does not have an intense plot and is more about the song and dance, but this played right into her hand and the rest of the cast was also unstoppable. The producers at this show decided to take a huge risk by putting her in the show and in my opinion it paid off greatly. The second show was God of Carnage. This was the 2009 Tony Award winner for best play and I again paid to sit up front. This cast only has 4 members and all of them were top film and theatre actors. Lead man Jeff Briles led them. After I got over the fact that the show was made for middle-aged married people with children, the play was awesome. The acting and directing left the audience rolling with laughter at times and amazed/speechless at other parts.
I will leave you with one more downer before I go. The Million Dollar Quartet is a new jukebox musical on Broadway. It is about one day in history when Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins all were in Sun Studios together and had an impromptu jam session. When my boss asked me if I wanted tickets I jumped at the opportunity to see some of my musical hero’s in action on stage. I love Elvis and own every song Johnny Cash has released so this to me had to be one of the greatest shows. Well the quartet tripped over itself and fell flat on its face. I took a dear friend with me to see it and to give a fair opinion she knows much less music history and much more about theatre and is also an aspiring producer. We both left the theatre wondering if that was really it. It was under cast and over dramatized. Elvis could not dance at all and was very pitchy at times and Jerry Lee was the best of them all with his great piano skills but had half the vocal range of the real Jerry. The real jam session between the four greats included mostly gospel, blues and bluegrass songs but thinking that couldn’t sell tickets the show contained only one of these songs and a dozen of the greatest hits. This is only talking a little about the music and we will have to save the lack of a plot for the next time.
After all of these theatrical experiences and several more to come in the next few weeks I am excited to be entering this crazy wonderful world. The funny thing is Million Dollar Quartet will make someone rich and the actually good musical down the street may never even be heard. There is still a fine line that we all are trying to walk.
